Almost all animals that walk upright today are warm-blooded, and dinosaurs walked upright.

The hearts of warm-blooded animals can pump much more effectively than the hearts of cold-blooded animals. Therefore, the giant Brachiosaurus must have had the type of heart associated with warm-blooded animals, in order to pump blood all the way up to its head.

Dinosaurs such as Deinonychus led a very active life, which was much more compatible with a warm-blooded animal.[5]

Some dinosaurs lived in northern latitudes where it would have been impossible for cold-blooded dinosaurs to keep warm.

The rapid rate of speciation and evolution found in dinosaurs is typical of warm blooded animals and atypical of cold blooded animals.[6]

The predator/prey ratio of predatory dinosaurs to their prey is a signature trait of warm-blooded predators rather than cold-blooded ones.

Birds are warm-blooded. Birds evolved from dinosaurs, therefore a change to a warm-blooded metabolism must have taken place at some point; there is far more change between dinosaurs and their ancestors, the archosaurs, than between dinosaurs and birds.[7]

Warm-blooded metabolisms are evolutionary advantages for top predators and large herbivores; if the dinosaurs had not been warm-blooded there should be fossil evidence showing mammals evolving to fill these ecological niches. No such evidence exists; in fact mammals by the end of the Cretaceous had become smaller and smaller from their mammal-like-reptile ancestors.

Dinosaurs grew rapidly, evidence for which can be found by observing cross-sections of their bones.[8] Warm-blooded animals grow at a similar rate.

His novel Raptor Red tells of a year in the life of a female Utahraptor of the lower Cretaceous. In the story, Bakker elaborates on his knowledge of the behavior of dromaeosaurids ("raptor" dinosaurs) and life at the time of their existence.

He is credited with the comment: "paleontology requires a lot of patience and a lot of beer."

The bearded paleontologist Dr. Robert Burke, who is eaten by a Tyrannosaurus rex in Steven Spielberg's film The Lost World: Jurassic Park, is an affectionate caricature of Bakker. In real life, Bakker has argued for a predatory T. rex, while Bakker's rival paleontologist Jack Horner views it as primarily a scavenger. According to Horner, Spielberg wrote the character of Burke and had him killed by the T. rex as a favor for Horner. After the film came out, Bakker recognized himself in Burke, loved the caricature, and actually sent Horner a message saying, "See, I told you T. rex was a hunter!".[12]

^"NJEA honors outstanding NJ public school grads"(PDF), NJEA Reporter, 51 (2), October 2007, retrieved July 9, 2008, A 1963 graduate of Ridgewood High School in Bergen County, Bakker credits the December 7, 1953 issue of Life magazine, which he unearthed at his grandfather's house, for his interest in dinosaurs.